No Lack Of Enthusiasm At Future Hoopsters Girls’ Basketball Camp

Spirit and enthusiasm were the predominant features this past week during the 10th annual Future Hoopsters Girls’ Basketball Camp.

30 girls showed a tremendous amount of energy and talent as they spent five three-hour sessions at the middle school, increasing their knowledge of the game of basketball.

“I thought the attitude of the girls this week was tremendous,” said camp director Marc Liberatore. “They were so enthusiastic and positive the entire week. The girls did a great job listening and learning. This was just a great group. With this group of girls, it was an easy week. They were great. They had so much enthusiasm.”

The camp was also bolstered by the terrific group of instructors, which included Meg Brown, Shannon Hansen, Kayla Bessette, Jessica Wasylow and Joan Valenti.

“The counselors are tremendously important to the success of the camp,” said Liberatore.

“They did an unbelievable job working with the girls all week.”

The girls were broken up into two divisions and four teams for the week. The older players, entering the seventh, eighth and ninth grades, were part of the WNBA Division and split up into two teams, the Liberty and the Sun.

The younger girls, who are heading into the fourth, fifth and sixth grades, were part of the Big East Division and were also split up into two teams, Syracuse and UConn.

Along with honing their basketball skills, the girls also took part in several theme days this past week, including Think Pink Day, Team Color Day and Boston Sports Shirt Day. Friday’s theme was camp tee-shirt day. The youngsters wore their camp tee-shirt, which they received on Monday, with most signing each other’s shirts. The camp counselors also signed many of the youngsters’ tee-shirts.

“All the kids did a terrific job participating in the spirit days,” said Liberatore. “The counselors did too, which motivated the kids to take part and made it more fun.”

On Friday there was an awards ceremony. All the girls received a certificate of completion from the coaches they worked with during the week at the awards presentation. Prior to the start of the ceremony, Liberatore said that “the girls showed the best overall attitude during a week of camp in its 10 years.” He also mentioned that he would “put our counselors up against any other camp anywhere.”

Maddie Murphy had a terrific week of camp. She won three awards in the WNBA Division, capturing the three-point, one-on-one and free-throw shooting contests.

Murphy actually had a tremendous day overall as later that night she hit a two-run, opposite-field home run to help the Norton National 12-year-old all-star baseball team win the Hockomock Summer League’s Junior 12B Division championship with a 10-8 victory over Mansfield at the Poncin-Hewitt Fields in Attleboro.

The hustle award in the WNBA Division went to Maggie Thomason with Hannah John capturing the attitude award for that section.

In the Big East Division, Jackie Conroy won the three-point and free-throw shooting contests, while Sarah John won the one-on-one competition. The division’s hustle award was presented to Jessica Vittorini with Aunnesha Bhoivmick earning the attitude award.

Janet Jolly also received a special tee-shirt as the 1000th participant in the 10-year history of the camp. There have been boys’ and girls’ camps held for the past 10 years.

“We had almost 85 kids the last two weeks,” said Liberatore, who had 53 youngsters take part in the boys’ camp last week. “We have had 100 days of the basketball camp the last 10 years and we have had 1,000 program participants. That is amazing.”